In today’s Financial Times, Andrew Jack, Frances Williams and Michael Steen report on Dutch seizure of generic Abacavir in transit to Africa:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0a0a0a9e-0928-11de-b8b0-0000779fd2ac.html
Dozens of HIV patients have been placed at risk after the Dutch authorities seized consignments of Indian-made medicines shipped via Schipol airport for distribution to clinics in Nigeria, a multilateral agency yesterday said.
Today Pascal Lamy responded to a February 18, 2009 NGO letter that among other things requested he use his office to mediate the dispute regarding the European Union policy of seizing generic medicines that are in transit to developing countries. The original letter and Mr Lamy’s response are available here:
On 18 February 2009, sixteen NGOs sent a letter to the head of the World Trade Organization regarding a series of seizures by the Dutch custom authorities of generic medicines in transit to developing countries. The letter is available at
https://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/seizures/WTO_seizures_18feb.pdf
Today, Director General Pascal Lamy responded to the letter which is available at
On 3 March 2009, the following intervention was delivered by Ambassador Roberto Azevêdo, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the WTO and other economic organizations in Geneva.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
TRIPS Council
Agenda item ‘M’ – OTHER BUSINESS – Public Health dimension of TRIPS Agreement
Statement by Brazil
Mr. Chairman,
The following is the KEI letter to the US Department of Justice on the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
February 25, 2009
US Department of Justice
Antitrust Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
E-mail: antitrust.atr@usdoj.gov
Re: Opposition to Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger
To whom it may concern:
Yesterday, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary had a hearing before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights on “The Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger: What Does it Mean for Consumers and the Future of the Concert Business?
LINK http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/subcommittees/antitrust.cfm
The witnesses were:
Over the weekend, I looked at a small section of one of my bookshelf at home.
As in my previous blog, I wrote down the titles and author names for all of the books, and then checked on Bookshare.org to find out what is actually available for reading disabled persons. For purposes of this survey, I considered all books on Bookshare of “fair or above quality” (the lowest of 4 categories that include publisher’s quality, excellent and good), as “being available.”
Today, I checked the books on my bookshelves at work. I found 69 books. 9 of them are available in formats accessible to the reading disabled in the US and 1 is available to the print disabled worldwide.
Do we need an international treaty for reading disabled persons?
Yes, and today the World Blind Union is seeking international support for a proposed Treaty for Reading Disabled Persons at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The next meeting where this matter could be taken up is at the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights taking place in Geneva, May 25-29, 2009.
As an early proponent of the use of patent pools to expand access to medical technologies, our initial reaction to the GSK announcement is that GSK is responding to several new developments.